If you haven’t heard of Weston Lukens yet, you will. The 10-year-old freeride mountain biker is turning heads and blowing minds with his confidence, composure and massive air time. Riding 55-foot jumps and throwing down double backflips, Weston is already competing at premiere freeride events like the Reece Wallace Invitational and the Cam Zink Invitational, holding his own among athletes more than twice his age.
“I crave the feeling of being free in the air,” Weston says in a recent video. “I crave holding as fast as possible. The sound of my tires hitting the dirt. Every time I try something new and step into something bigger, I have to put that trust in myself.”
A little kid in a big kid’s world
When Weston lines up at the top of the course with the pros, he’s not just watching. He’s riding right alongside them. In a recent interview with Teton Gravity Research, he said, “it’s scary because you don’t know how every run is going to work out… but it’s also really awesome to ride with all these pros, sit up there and talk to them, and do the same tricks they are. It’s probably the coolest feeling ever.”
The respect goes both ways. In his latest video, Can Zink jokes, “Your adrenal glands are going to be burned out by the time you’re 14.” Another calls Weston “a psychopath” in the most complimentary way possible.
Stomping a dream
Weston recently landed his first double backflip, a trick he’d been dreaming about for nearly a year. “The only hold-up was finding the right place to do it,” he told Teton Gravity Research. “It felt like the coolest feeling ever to land this trick after thinking about it for a while.”
Rampage? That’s the dream. “I’d really like to ride in Rampage one day,” he told TGR.
Still a kid (sort of)
“I may be a young kid playing a big kids’ game,” Weston says in his latest video, “but those big kids are behind me, teaching, pushing, encouraging, helping me become who I want to be. After all, when it comes right down to it, I’m really just a smaller version.”
A smaller version. For now. Want to see what he’s really capable of? Check out a full edit here.
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